The Art of the Two Minute Sermon

I was once again accepted into Princeton Seminary’s working preacher focused fellowship program, which I attended last week. It was a week filled with a wonderful preacher each evening who preached on Job, morning plenary was on the movement in the church to a pluralistic society, a class on eco preaching, a class on storytelling, one on using improv, and my main class was on agile preaching moving from the pulpit to the public square.

It was in this agile preaching class where our assignment was to create a two minute sermon that would be critiqued by our peers and our professor. I will not give away the lessons of the class, as our professor has a book coming out with her teachings and I would not want to plagiarize her work, but I did want to talk about this idea of the two minute sermon in this post.

There are so many instances in a preacher’s life where we are handed a microphone and are asked to pray or speak, usually off the cuff, and we are given a limited time to speak. Thinking about what we could and should say was one of the major points of this class and even after 25 years of ministry, I never really thought about looking at these moments as opportunities to proclaim rather than something we are doing for the town or at a rally. While I have used these moments, such as praying at the 9-11 town gathering, to talk about peace, thinking more intentionally about what COULD I be saying in that time makes it a time of agile preaching.

One of my joys is listening to podcasts done by comedians about the art of doing comedy. I find a lot of parallels between preachers and comedians when it comes to standing in front of groups of people. For comedians the idea of the tight 5 minutes is an important aspect to the art, as that is usually how much time they are given at open mics. I thought about this, as I wrote my sermon that could only be two minutes long.

While our initial thought may be, two minutes is not enough, that is the point- how can our message be distilled into two minutes so it is focused and reflects the Gospel or the point we are making. The realization I had is that two minutes is also more time than you think it is and that was without rushing. A lot can be said in two minutes as it is about a page and a quarter of text.

Why it was important to learn this skill became abundantly clear as the class progressed. Not only was it important for public opportunities like rallies and prayer moments, but think about tik tok or instagram reels. One only gets a few minutes before the swipe occurs, so how does one say what is needed quickly and efficiently?

Being focused helps the message get across better and allows for later conversation, as it is needed. I’ve watched preachers go on and on during community events and at the 5 minute mark, it becomes too much. Heck, I’ve probably done it myself. Thinking about getting to the point, not only helps the listener digest, but helps the preacher focus on what aspect of theology is important to them. When we speak, we are bringing our theological lenses with us, so which lens do we want to focus on becomes even more important.

If you had to speak for 2 minutes, what would you say? You ONLY get 2 minutes too.

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